ACII DLC: Battle of Forli Review

The first of the Assassin’s Creed 2 DLC that all the AC fans, me included, have eagerly awaited has just been released. It’s called the Battle of Forli and is the corrupted 12th sequence that Ubisoft so cruelly took away from me. Thankfully though they were kind enough to keep the price down to $4.00 or £3.00 if you’re in the UK. The DLC contains six missions in total and is based around you, defending Caterina Sforza from the Orsi brothers while keeping the piece of Eden in the safe hands of the Assassins.

The missions take place in Montreggio, the settlement with the flooded countryside. The story is that the Orsi brothers, two mercenaries have attacked the city in order to recover the Codex pages and the Piece of Eden, obviously paid by the Templars. The first half of the missions are pretty much carbon copies of each other, you protecting Caterina and her associate. The second half is you rescuing her two children from the brothers, more stealth based but none the less lackluster. You then have to hunt down one of the brothers in a disappointing chase sequence and then when a mysterious black robed monk steals the piece, you need to track him down. The second half is by far the strongest half but is still quite uneventful and compared to the rest of the games missions unimpressive. They also made a big deal about access to the flying machine, and yes it is there however it is not used in anyway in missions. It instead allows you to “freefly” around the map, again using the fires to give you air. While this is fun for a short amount of time, it gets very old quickly. One thing that must be mentioned is that Caterina is a wonderful character, flashing her undergarments and defending her home with a large knife.

So overall impressions? Well lets recap: lackluster, short, unimpressive. It’s barely an hour of gameplay and missions are non-replayable however for the low price I would recommend picking it up. Lets hope that next month’s DLC, Bonfire of the Vanities offers something more.